Blackstone Aims $10 Bn For Third Asia Fund With Focus On India

Private equity behemoth Blackstone has started raising its third Asia-focussed private equity fund, targeting at least $10 Bn.

As per Reuters, the new buyout fund will primarily focus on India with the largest percentage of capital allocated there. However, China will not be a focus market for the new fund.

Japan and Australia will be two other significant markets for Blackstone while it continues to look at other countries such as South Korea and Singapore, the report said, citing sources close to the matter.

The world’s largest alternative asset manager has initiated marketing the fund in September and is looking to have its first closing in January 2025, Bloomberg reported.

This comes on the heels of Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal holding bilateral meetings with Blackstone and global private equity firm Warburg Pincus to discuss investment opportunities in India in electronics and renewable energy sectors.

Both global as well as emerging domestic investors’ are actively engaging with the Indian investment ecosystem. In August, two new funds joined the pool of micro VC funds in India and over two dozen such funds announced or raised this year alone. While Gujarat-based Volt VC launched its maiden early-stage fund with a target corpus of INR 45 Cr, former lead investor in SaaS,Aviral Bhatnagar launched a new venture capital fund called AJVC. 

In a decade, India startups have raised more than $154 Bn in funding between 2014 and September 2024. Indian startups cumulatively raised $5.3 Bn in the first half (H1) of 2024. During the period under review, funding numbers surged 7% year-on-year (YoY). 

Anticipating a positive uptick in investments, more than 90% of startup investors said they expect a funding revival in H2 2024, as per an Inc42 survey.

Last year, Blackstone held talks with Walt Disney to acquire a stake in the Indian arm of the entertainment giant.